Many industrial and commercial processes create vapourized liquids, particularly hot vapours, which must be condensed into a cooler liquid form for storage and eventual disposal or treatment. In the petroleum industry, for instance, a glycol/water vapour mixture is created at dehydration (“dehy”) facilities. However, substantial amounts of such vapour should not be released into the atmosphere to avoid undue pollution of the environment. There are several accepted methods of dealing with the glycol/water vapour, such as running the hot vapour through a series of overhead or underground pipes to cool and condense the vapour into liquid form, and then to pass the liquid into an underground storage tank. Such piping is problematic and undesireable, and the underground storage tanks suffer from several deficiencies as noted in applicant's Canadian Patent 2,196,941 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,009.
One solution to the above-noted problems has been to provide a dual containment condensation assembly, as set out in Canadian Patent 2,274,251 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,381,979, and another solution has been to provide a novel stand-alone condensation tank which may be connected remotely to an existing storage tank, or alternately may be retro-fitted thereonto, as described in applicant's Canadian Patent Application 2,450,979.
However, it is desireable to further provide a condensation unit of a more compact design, but which has a relatively greater cooling surface area per unit volume to promote an increased rate of condensation. The novel design should be modular in nature so that a desired number of horizontally oriented condensation units may be stacked in a vertical array to suit a user's present or future requirements and to provide a desired rate of condensation. Such condensation units should have the same or substantially similar configurations to allow for convenient formation of the stacked array, and to allow for units to be built relatively quickly and efficiently in an assembly-line format. The stacked arrangement should provide for openings between the condensation units to provide a more uniform cooling effect across the multiple units, along both their top and bottom surfaces. The novel open modular design should further reduce wind loads on the resultant structure, as less vertical surface area is needed to provide the same cooling as in a prior art single tank design.
In another version, the condensation units may be provided with a novel internal vapour funnel arrangement which should facilitate upward vapour flow through the stacked array and reduce contact with downflowing liquid.
In yet another version, a novel inlet header may be provided to expose incoming vapour to a cooling surface prior to its introduction into the condensation units.
In yet a further version, an artificially induced heat transfer medium may be introduced internally or externally to the cooling chambers to substantially increase cooling effectiveness and the rate of vapour condensation in the condensation units.